Silent Hunter
by Flying Lancer
Summary: my first attempt...read it and lemme know whatcha think....OH, AND I DO NOT OWN D
1. In The Beginning

Clop.Clop.  
A horse is walking along an old cobblestone road. On its back, is its dark clothed rider. On his back, a sword almost as tall as the figure himself is protruding from under his cloak to the side.  
In the distance, evidence of a town can be seen in the sky. Smoke from cook fires, the very tips of roofs, and the baying of dogs occasionally. As the rider comes closer to the town, we can see that it is rather dilapidated, many of the houses in very poor condition.  
The only building in any sort of repair is a two-story inn. Smoke rises from its chimney healthily, and some even through the windows, from oldsters smoking their pipes up a storm. As the rider approaches closer, some of the old men stop smoking and turn to appraise this visitor, and then return to puffing.  
The man tethers the horse next to the few others there, and then enters the inn. Inside is what seems to be most of the village men, most drunk or getting there fast. In one corner, a table sits empty, and he sits. As the barmaid approaches, she looks at the strangers face, balks, and then comes closer.  
"My lord, how may I serve you," the girl asks.  
"Some food would be nice, as well as a little ale if you have it," comes the monotonous reply.  
The girl dips an unpracticed curtsey, and then hastily retreats as a man walks towards the table.  
"Hello stranger, my name is Jarod. I've never seen you around here before, so may I request your name?"  
"I am called D."  
"Just D? Well, anyway, welcome to our town.what little is left at any rate."  
D nods, and gestures to the seat in front of him. Jarod sits, and begins to talk again.  
"You wouldn't happen to be a vampire hunter, would you D?"  
No answer.  
"You see, we've been having problems with the local count lately.he's started raising the tithe and we can't pay. That's why our town looks so poor, we can barely pay what he asks, and we've not enough left over to fix our own homes." Jarod looks down at the table, his face coloring with shame.  
"I'll take the job, but I'm going to need more information than that if you expect me to rid you of the count."  
Jarod looks up, his face full of gratitude.  
"Thank you hunter, thank you so very much," he gets up and runs out the door, to one of the few other houses that look stable, which must be the mayor's house.  
After a few more minutes, the girl brings him his food, D nods to her, and begins to eat with slow, deliberate movements. The meat isn't fully cooked, so it makes his fangs elongate some. Forcing his mind away from the blood, he finishes the little bit of venison, and then leans back to nurse the ale. The girl returns after a few moments of being back in the kitchen or wherever.  
"Sir, would you like anything else," she asks, her voice almost trembling with fear.  
D looks up at her, studies her face. She seems to shrink back some, and then D smiles at her.  
"Sit, girl. Tell me why you fear me so much."  
He pushes one of the chairs out with his foot, and motions her to sit. She does, apprehensively, and stares at the table.  
"I.I'm sorry my lord, I'm not meaning to be scared.honest. I've just never seen many other people dressed the same, except the vampire lord.I saw him once you know."  
D nods, and motions her to continue her story.  
"He came to town, and went into the mayor's house. He had all kinds of monsters with him, and one even attacked a villager. The person survived, but he's been blind ever since." The girl seems to be loosening up now, ready to tell her story. "As he was leaving, he came very near to me, and I got a good look at him. He was very pale, even paler than you, my lord."  
D frowns, and scratches his chin thoughtfully.   
"I wish you wouldn't call me lord.it makes me feel old. My name is D.and your name is.?"  
"They call me Mercy.D."  
"Continue with your story please, Mercy."  
"Yes.anyway, he was very small up close. He seemed so large when he was far away, but when he came near to me, he was no bigger than maybe a boy my age."  
"Hmmm.thank you."  
Mercy nods, and then hears her name called from the back room.  
"Excuse me, my lord.I mean, D. I have to go."  
  



	2. Mercy...

NOTE: I do not own D. The other characters, are, however, mine. If you want to use them, all you need to do is ask.  
  
  
  
  
D leans back in his chair, and props up a foot in a nearby chair. He nurses his ale some more, face thoughtful. After a while, he gets up, and approaches the innkeeper.  
"Are you looking for a room tonight, my lord," the man asks cautiously, looking up at D to peer into his face. "We have some very good rooms, lord, perhaps..." the man leaves the question unfinished. D nods, and an eager look comes over the man's face.  
"W...what can we do for you, my master? Come, allow me to show you to the rooms..." he is very clearly blubbering, perhaps hoping to get some extra money in a tip? The man practically dances towards the stairs, D following behind, not paying any attention to the man leading him.   
Walking down the poor hallway, the innkeeper leads him to a door, which looks equally poor. Inside, however, the room is surprisingly clean, and a nice feather bed adorns one wall, and a cedar wardrobe on the opposite. D nods to the innkeeper, who leaves quickly, but not quietly. The man trips on something in the hallway, stumbles down the passage, and then seemingly rolls down the stairs.  
However, D doesn't hear him. He is sitting on the edge of the bed, thinking. If it really is that small, then chances are that it is either using a clever illusion, or its form really is that of a young male. Either way, it could be dangerous...physical size doesn't have anything at all to do with a vampire's powers. After sitting for a while longer, D undresses, and goes to sleep.  
The next morning, he awakens and hears the chirping of a single bird, outside of his window. Peering at it, D notices that it isn't a normal bird. It seems to be slightly misshapen, as if it had been maimed in some way. He approaches it slowly, so as not to startle it, and opens the window. The bird flutters in, and D realizes that its wing is broken. Taking the small creature in his hands, he puts it on the top of the wardrobe, and proceeds to wrap its wing.  
After finishing, he dresses and takes the bird downstairs, to Mercy. She peers with amazement at the small being in the palm of her hand, then looks up at D in wonder.  
"Th...thank you, lord D. I'll not forget this..." she strokes the bird's head very soft and tender, and the bird chirrups back in response. D merely nods again. He turns, and seeks the innkeeper.  
"Here is payment for allowing me to use your room last night." D hands him a few coins, and the man looks ready to shit on himself. He tries to talk, but all that comes out is stutters. Obviously, money must be a very rare thing in some places. Leaving the inn, D finds his horse, and saddles up. Riding from town, D glances back on whim. He sees Mercy looking after him, standing on the steps of t he inn, waving.   
He lifts a hand in silent farewell, and continues forth on his journey.   



	3. Ambushed whilst sleepin'!

Days have passed since D came through the small town, and it is beginning to show in his ration sack. He peers down into it, and spies only a block or so of cheese, and a half loaf of bread. Sighing, he stares out into the horizon, where the spires of an ancient castle lie. They pierce the sky like spears, and they seem to be black, and clouded with darkness.   
As night falls, D camps in a small clearing next to the road, and spirals into sleep quickly. His sleep, however, was not to be. Howls scream through the night's air, and D jerks awake, his hand instantly on his sword, drawn. Pads can be heard hitting the earth outside of the clearing, not many, but a several large.   
As they come closer, D's extraordinary vision can see that they're huge werewolves, the smallest the size of a Great Dane. Holding his sword in front of him, D can feel the vampire inside of him awaken and stir. His fangs begin to elongate, and his eyes turn blood red and slitted. He bares his teeth at the weres, but they pay no heed. He can feel Left Hand trying to talk to him, but the battle rage is too much, even for the being within his hand.   
Faster than sight, D is upon the wolves, battling fiercely and ferociously as they. They are more, but D is faster and has a better weapon...a longer weapon. From a distance that their speed cannot close, D's sword begins to mince the beasts, slicing a leg off here, the tip of a nose off there. Soon, the wolves realize that they cannot battle such a foe, and fall back.   
It is too late for them, however. D is beyond reason, and his rage is roaring full force through him. He closes quarters with the werewolves, and begins his deadly work with his sword. Slice here, pierce there, and one wolf is headless and with cold steel through its heart. The same for the others, and one even tries to flee, but D is faster. He swings his sword, and at the last moment the wolf veers, but not enough. The sword slices through it with ethereal ease, making it now a corpse, cut in two.  
After a while of staring at the dead monsters, D returns to his senses. His eyes cool back off to their normal shade of green, and his body relaxes. Sighing, he finally gives in to the demon in his hand, and listens to it berate him as he removes the glove.  
"Damnit D, you know you shouldn't do that. You idiot, do you realize what would have happened if anyone had seen you? They'd have probably tried to kill you, and you so wrapped up in those damned wolves, its no wonder no one DID take a shot at you..." It calms down a little, and then starts to speak again.  
"What do you think would happen to me, if you went off and got yourself killed, huh? I'd be stuck here in your hand, and have one hell of a time trying to get out. I'd probably die, how would you like that?" Its voice becomes muffled again, as D pulls his glove back on.  
"Sorry," is all he says. Left Hand mumbles something through the glove, and D nods. "I agree, its time to get moving again. I suppose our host already knows we're coming by now."  
Again, mounting his horse, which had all the while stood calmly where it had been tethered, D rides off towards the castle again, this time in the middle of the night, with his demon friend still cursing him every few moments.  



	4. Well Now...Talk About Fruitless

As D gets closer to the castle, he can begin to see the details of its construction. Grander than even the Count Magnus' castle, its spires reach into the very clouds themselves, twirling ever upwards. Its construction is magnificent, as if the very dwarves of ancient legend had built it themselves for their mightiest king. The most noticeable feature isn't all the grandness of its design.  
It's the dead bodies hanging from the gate. The stench is enough to choke D, and shut Left Hand up. He stares at it in disgust, as he notices that many of the bodes are those of children. They all seem fresh, as if they were hung there in a welcoming salute.   
"Ugh, this is nasty D," Left Hand says from within the glove. D removes it, and holds his hand up so that he can talk with his demonic friend.  
"Indeed. Such frivolousness in a vampire is not very common. We must be dealing with a younger vampire, perhaps one who was turned before he had really began to mature." D gazes out past the gate, to the large, ironbound front door.   
"Well my friend, shall we stop in and say hello?" D kicks his horse into a gallop, and the gates open as he draws nearer, and he proceeds through it and out onto the drawbridge.  
As he trots out onto it, he hears a peculiar keening noise coming from under him. D's eyebrows draw down, and he dismounts from the horse. Walking over to the edge of the bridge, he peers over the brink, his eyes just barely past. He sees a rope, and on the end of it a child is hanging.   
The keening noise comes again, and he realizes its coming from the child. Reaching down and cautiously pulling the rope up, D hoists the child over the edge and onto the bridge.  
"Hello, child. Can you yet speak?" D looks into the baby boy's face, which is populated by a multitude of small scratches and scars. He looks at D dazedly, then shakes his head, and opens his mouth. What comes out is a series of gurgles, and then the baby grabs D's leg, and gurgles again.  
"Uh...." D's face is full of confusion and awkwardness, and since he's never handled a baby before, he isn't quite sure how to proceed. He picks the lad up, and puts him on the back of his horse, which is yet again standing complacently where D had left it. He checks around the boy's neck for any harm the rope may have done. There isn't any. D stares at the kid with some amazement, and then straps him to the horse's saddle.  
D leans up to whisper in its ear.  
"Go back through the gate, and wait for me with the lad outside." He smacks the horse's rear, and watches as it canters back through the still open gate. He turns around and stares at the castle, then moves towards the front door.  



	5. Bloody Bloody...GROSSS!!!

After a fruitless search of the castle wings and major rooms, D turned to leave the castle. But then he heard something. He listened hard. And as it slowly got louder and louder, D realized that it was a heartbeat, and his vampiric teeth were growing out, that his mind was beginning to dwell on the fact that there was a beating heart nearby. That was one of the downsides of being half vampire, having moral compunctions, thought D.  
He turned to the large wall that forked into the separate wings of the castle, and watched it. As he did, it appeared to melt down into the floor, and a doorway was revealed. He approached, and the door swung inwards with nary a sound. D entered, and all was darkness. He could hear things beyond the range of his sight, and sense things beyond the range of his hearing.  
A slight trickle of moonlight came down through a cross-shaped hole in the ceiling, and it revealed very little about the room. The floor was made of smooth rainbow marble.D looked around, the heartbeat being nearer than before. His eyes slowly slid into the infrared range, and he could see a coffin in one corner, and several statues in the other.  
He began to walk towards the coffin carefully, since vampires tended to have the area booby-trapped to ward off foolish humans. However, no traps sprang open, only the heartbeat grew louder.   
D reached down and touched the coffin, and he noticed it was warm...and wet. He lifted his hand to his nose, and the wetness was blood. He quickly tore the top off the coffin, and stared down uncomprehendingly at Mercy, her neck bitten by vampire fangs, and the bird he had given her without a head. Then, a silent, slippery voice spoke from behind.  
"It seems you have found my small present for you, Hunter."  
D turned around, his insides roaring with rage. The speaker has now appeared, and it is about as half as tall as D himself. It is indeed young, since it still has a heat signature from its body.   
"Did you like the touch with the bird? I thought it might be a little artistic, don't you think?"  
D stares at the small shape, lips pulling back from his teeth, and a snarl emerging from his throat. He begins circling the smaller vampire, who in turn circles back.  
"Honestly, I could have done so much more for her, you know. Could have made her one of us, don't you think?"  
D lunges in at the smaller vampire, who springs out of the way just in time to avoid a throat gorging swipe by D's hand. D turns on him again, snarling with rage and his mouth dripping saliva and snot.  
"Seems like I pissed someone off...oops. Hehe." The smaller vampire jumps into the air, and hovers slightly away from the wall. "Come on D, wassamatta, can't fly?"   
D launches himself towards the smaller vampire again, who dodges and rips a furrow in D's back. Howling in pain and even deeper rage, he turns and roars at the smaller vampire, who is letting himself back down to the floor.  
D's eyes are now a red beyond description, his once solemn face twisted in a horrific rage, such a rage as man's words will never compare. He roars again, and focuses in on the smaller vampire.  
Suddenly, the smaller one doubles over in pain. It lifts its head up, and screams, blood spurting from its mouth and ears, running out its nose, blood running out of other holes. Its clothes are now soaked with blood, blood it had taken from helpless people, animals...and Mercy.  
A grin spreads over D's face, baring his fangs, which are now half again as long as usual. He launches himself from the wall to the smaller one, his left hand drawn back, ready to strike. Suddenly, his left hand pulls up facing the smaller vampire, and Left Hand screams in rage also, seemingly as upset at the death of those innocents as D.  
Left Hand pierces straight through the vampire's skin, straight into its heart, and it begins devouring its lifeblood, as D's fangs sing into its neck, into its throat and ripping a huge gouge, blood spraying grotesquely everywhere. He places his mouth over the gaping hole, and almost sucks the blood down.  
After draining the body of its blood, D lets it drop back onto the floor, the remains of its throat still spurting blood and gore. Turning back towards the coffin, and pauses over it. Some semblance of his humanity has returned, his eyes aren't nearly as red as they were, and his teeth have shrunken back to normal size.  
He puts his wrist over Mercy's mouth, thinking to save her with his vampiric mind. He reaches up with the other hand, and slits a small hole in his wrist, watching the blood dribble down into her lifeless mouth, and then over the holes in her neck. 


	6. Strange Enough!

He stared down at her body for what seemed to him like forever, then he saw a little motion in her hand, her fingers curling slightly. He bent over top of her farther, and saw color come back into her cheeks. D put his hand over her nose, and felt breath coming from it.   
D picked her up, and carried her from the castle. It was sundown, and his horse was still waiting faithfully across the drawbridge. The baby boy had either crawled or fell off the horse's back, and was sitting on the ground playing in the grass. D put Mercy across the saddle, then mounted himself and set her upright. He then leaned down and picked the boy up, carrying him in his free hand as the other held Mercy, and he guided the horse with his feet.   
Soon he was near the town again, and he picked stealthily through the streets to an abandoned house on the outskirts. Inside of it were still a few beds in serviceable condition, so he laid Mercy on one, the boy on another, and himself slept on the couch.   
As D awoke a while later to find Mercy standing over him, her eyes slightly glazed as if in a trance. He reached up to find her skin cold, and he stood up next to her. She sat down on the couch, and looked dazedly at the wall. Then, small footsteps sounded in the hall, and in toddled the baby. He waddled over to Mercy, and held his arms out to her.   
She stared at the baby uncomprehendingly, then a small light seemed to dawn inside her eyes. She reached down and picked the boy up, and cradled him in her arms, and the baby gurgled happily. D stared silently down at the two, then left the room and returned a moment later with a quilt. He wrapped the two in it, then sat down, pulled his hat over his eyes, and slept again.  
After staying for a few days, D decided it was time to leave. He and Mercy mounted on his cyborg horse, and left town as silently as they had came. Mercy sat staring down at the toddler in her arms, as D guided the horse out of town. 


End file.
